Apple suggests labor cost isn't only consideration

Apple has revolutionized personal communications and entertainment with a steady parade of extraordinary devices, as its Mac computers have remained a mainstay for graphics and other data-heavy applications. But it hasn't produced a single part for any of those machines in the United States for more than a decade.

Last week, Apple announced that it plans to bring some of that manufacturing back to the United States from Asia, even though it has no market driven reason to do so.

Relative to the broad scope of electronics manufacturing, the Apple move is modest. It will spend about $100 million to re-establish some Mac computer production in the United States. Computers now account for less than 20 percent of Apple's production, which is dominated by iPads and iPhones.

The company, which sold 237 million iPods, iPads, Macs, smartphones and other devices in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, has adequate manufacturing capacity abroad.

But, like many U.S.-based global companies, Apple has been under pressure to create more jobs in the United States.

"I don't think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job. But I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs," Apple CEO Timothy D. Cook told Bloomberg Businessweek.

Though manufacturing costs are higher in the United States than in many places where U.S. companies base their manufacturing, the United States offers stability, reliable business infrastructure and other assets that sometimes offset lower labor costs abroad.

As noted by The New York Times, the World Bank recently ranked the United States near the top in a category called "ease of doing business," whereas the Philippines, Brazil, India and some others ranked near the bottom.

Ideally, the trickle of manufacturers like Apple bringing home some manufacturing will become a torrent as companies realize that labor costs are not the only factor in competitiveness.

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